Hats off to city police, hospital, recovery groups

Friday

Jul 11, 2014 at 2:00 AM

Hats off to the partnership between Portsmouth Police Department and Portsmouth Regional Hospital in their launch of the first Community Access to Recovery day this Saturday, including the "amnesty box" for those afraid to come forward.

July 9 — To the Editor:

Hats off to the partnership between Portsmouth Police Department and Portsmouth Regional Hospital in their launch of the first Community Access to Recovery day this Saturday, including the "amnesty box" for those afraid to come forward.

As someone who is skeptical of prohibition and the war on drugs, it is heartening to see law enforcement and health professionals join together to encourage addicts to seek help and to address them as neighbors — real people with a real medical problem — rather than criminals. This lets the problem be dealt with out in the open, rather than through the underbelly of a prison system.

Prosecution can only take us so far in getting the people we love to stop hurting themselves and those around them, and drug use is the prime example of this reality. It is nice to see the acceptance of the fact that values are best spread with love and kindness. Hopefully, we can all take a lesson on this from the PPD/PRH initiative. Kudos to the PPD for once again demonstrating that it is the kind of police department others should look up to.

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